S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Iraq has grown at high rates over the past few years and 2012 was no different. The country\u2019s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was up 8% from 2011, driven by an oil output hike and the growth of non-oil businesses, whose share in total economic activity is still little. <\/p>\n
Notwithstanding the good results, a delegation of the International Monetary Fund that met with Iraqi authorities between March 2nd and 12th in Amman, Jordan, warns that the country is facing major challenges in the medium term. These include improving the banking system and business environment.<\/p>\n
The head of the IMF delegation, Carlo Sdralevich, stated in a press release on Thursday (21st) that Iraq was able to capitalize on increased oil revenues to achieve a budget surplus equivalent to 4% of its GDP in 2012. Oil output, which averaged at 3 million barrels per day, should be up 9% this year to 3.3 million barrels a day. <\/p>\n
Inflation, which stood at 6% in 2012, is expected to decline in 2013. Due to heightened oil revenues, the country\u2019s foreign exchange reserves rose to US$ 70 billion and the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) now stands at US$ 18 billion. Though it concedes that the country has maintained fiscal stability in the last two years, the IMF claims many challenges lie ahead, such as making the political climate less unstable, promote improvements in quality of life and increased safety. On the economic front it will be no different.<\/p>\n
"Financial sector policies are improving, but more remains to be done. The CBI\u2019s ongoing efforts to refine monetary policy instruments, strengthen banking supervision, and accelerate the restructuring of the banking system are crucial," says Sdralevich in the release. The Fund deems Iraqi\u2019s state-owned banks "weak" and suggests that aside from strengthening them, the government must create the conditions for the presence of private institutions to increase. To that end, a "full" financial restructuring will need to take place.<\/p>\n
"Iraq will need to address serious medium-term challenges in order to be able to create the conditions for high and sustainable growth that is necessary to improve the living standards of its people. The economy continues to suffer from severe structural weaknesses such as a small nonoil sector, high unemployment, public sector dominance, and a weak business environment," according to the Fund.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An IMF delegation convened with Iraqi authorities in Amman, Jordan, and warned of medium-term challenges facing the country\u2019s economy, such as perfecting the banking system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy"},"wps_subtitle":"An IMF delegation convened with Iraqi authorities in Amman, Jordan, and warned of medium-term challenges facing the country\u2019s economy, such as perfecting the banking system.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}